Tracing the Devil
by LifeInABox66
Summary: In which England spends a lot of time in darkened rooms, flirting with various literary figures. And possibly even learns something in the process.


**OK, this fic has been a ****long**** time in the making. I suppose you could call it a very long, very pretentious character study of England – but you could equally categorise it as a very small microcosm of the development of his principles and cultures. **

**What you couldn't call it is brief. I apologise for this in advance. **

**Also, expect a truly incorrigible amount of Marlowe-fangirlery. **

* * *

><p><em>If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.<br>__- Mikhail Bakunin_

* * *

><p><strong>1588<strong>

Swathed in a mesh of shadow, face partially obscured but for a purse-lipped frown of concentration, one man stands at the centre of the sparsely furnished room. Presumably he has been invited to sit and has declined, for a fragile straw chair sits vacant at the furthermost wall. Instead, he paces briskly from one wall to the other, pausing at intervals – all the time perusing a frayed fistful of parchment: thick, and densely crowded with irregular, spidery handwriting. The other man sits expectant at a cluttered desk – the only other piece of furniture save a threadbare mattress positioned unceremoniously at the side of the floor. He tracks the other man determinedly with his eyes, scouring his face for any flicker of interest, for any modulation in the tuneful serenity of impassive concentration. He discerns none.

The final scrap of paper is scrutinised and shuffled to the back of the pile. Peering at the page revealed underneath, one might almost perceive through the gloom a flourishing, ink-blotched rubric. _**Doctor Faustus. **_

Christopher Marlowe watches his Nation's measured paces slow to a halt. Expectantly, he sits up straighter. Has he finished? Yes. Yes, he has finished.

Silence, almost tangible in its obscure density, floods the room.

"Thy thoughts?" he inquires, in an ill-conceived attempt to mask his trepidation.

"Kit," says England, seriously. "This man is a buffoon_._"

* * *

><p><strong>1661<strong>

England treads up the winding, skewed staircase, hastening to avoid any more encounters with dust-spattered cobwebs and dirt-streaked surfaces than are completely necessary. After forcing his way through a firmly boarded, heavily concealed entrance, one would have thought that ascent would be the comparatively easier experience. One would be reckoning without a new, light linen doublet, he decides, wryly. But enough of vanity. His apparel will be scarcely noticeable in the dimness, much less noticed. Moreover, one ought not to make a habit of dressing for the benefit of fugitives.

Long overdue, the empty shadows yield to a narrow door. The end is, one imagines, in sight, assuming there are to be no further boneheaded obstacles with which to contend. By which England almost certainly includes one of his soon-to-be host's doggedly loyal friends, who stood dutiful guard at the secret entrance (a flagrant abuse of logic right there) and was obdurately disinclined to budge, even at the proffering of far too excessive a glittering bribery. He now lies slumped unconscious in a nearby alleyway; stubborn till the last, but soon to recover. On the whole, no harm done.

England approaches the door with soft, yet deliberately audible footsteps. He extends a fist to give it an insistent rap, the various rings on his fingers clattering oddly in the echoing gloom. Like the scrape of iron shackles on cold stone – piercing and obtrusive.

There is a fraught silence, during which the aftermath of shattered calm noiselessly resounds, and the panic in the hidden room is nigh visible through the door and the darkness. After much hesitation – and presumably lengthy internal debate – a weak, yet unfaltering voice inquires: "Who is there?" Scarcely a tremor – but the tone is saturated with anxiety.

"It is thy Nation, John Milton," says England, gently. And wrinkles his nose at the pungent smell of damp, whilst standing in wait of a response. That is, assuming there remains anything to be said. But John is a man of words – a man, moreover, of debate, first and foremost - and if he is to squander the chance for conversation in this dilapidated hideaway, well, he is certainly not the man England once knew.

... Ah. But perhaps it is not conversation he fears.

A moment elapses - and then another, with a third tripping closely at its heels. England wonders if this entire, tedious excursion will amount to naught. John Milton is capable of adamantine resolution if needed, and would certainly be capable of letting his sovereign Nation lurk in the wake of a bolted door; aye, and never venture a word, either of hospitality or contempt. However, it seems that luck – or the fire-forged steel manacles of a shared history – has yet to desert him, for a few seconds after the thought occurs, the door swings wide. He steps into surprisingly spacious rooms, doused in intermittent patches of light from various, cunning little windows dotted about the walls. Once, he remembers, there was fire. Fire, and heady, effervescent hope mingled with urgent destruction – and the world, ripped away, rent asunder and pieced upside down in grotesque, twisting shapes that writhed and mutated until finally, in their combined ire, they collapsed upon themselves. And yet – once there was fire. He hopes to heaven that he will never again be forced to rub the sting out of his eyes amidst the smoke of a like conflagration.

How incongruous, that it should all have dissolved into insubstantial pieces of light - half ashamed of its own gleaming evanescence! And how truly, awfully strange, to see the very man who kept him enraptured to the cause stand before him as a withering husk, no less ravaged than the very ideals he professed.

"England," he says, in greeting, low. Mournful. Irritation prickles; that he should mourn! "Yes. Your voice, I recognise. Would that this pernicious darkness should disperse for one second, that I might see your face!" And he moves forwards, proffering his hands.

It is John, yes – but a man wasted. He is frail, thin – and the milky cast of eyes always unfocused, but never so vague, reveals... "Thine _eyes_, John. I am surprised afresh each time I behold thee to see that Providence hath been so cruel as to render so perspicacious a man blind." And here, in the sparse outline of a drab room, it is all the more painfully evident. Gently, England clasps his hands and leads him towards a seat.

Milton shakes his head in amused indulgence. "Blind, but not sightless, my nation."

England fails to see the humour in the situation, and somewhat resents being spoken to as one might reassure a child, with fond paradoxes. "Marry, how so?" he mutters. There is something about the setting which demands quietude – else he might have spoken more sharply. As it is, he is torn between a dutiful kind of indignation and an unintentionally sincere curiosity.

"Marry, by the grace of God," he replies, smiling – and seems shrouded by a childish illumination. This man, observes England with no small amount of wonder, has managed to retain his innocence despite everything: a cool slither of ice, impossibly frozen amidst sun, mud and wreckage.

"Aye; for thee, God is perpetually graceful," says his nation, scowling in a manner that might conceivably be described as somewhat petulant.

"God is graceful always, be it for me or anyone else," he chides. England gives a faint hiss of breath. Piousness is, at present, not something he can cheerfully stomach. "For mine own part... I have dreams. Rapturous things, my nation! I do not see – but yet I feel, and hear. The darkness is subsumed by a mighty maelstrom of searing light; light which is perceived, but not by the vacant eye - and in the solace of my mind, it calms and softens into words. Such, I believe, is the speech of God." His empty gaze is fixed beyond England's face, focused insensibly on some invisible phenomena. The intensity is uncomfortable; England feels his companion is fading into the next world by its sheer force and transcendence – and feels obliged to drag him back.

"John," says England, warningly. He is slipping away, into some ethereal plane_ – _unwilling to take heed of things material or mortal. Such is always the case. "I have done with revolt in God's name. I have learned to embrace pure reason instead. Hopeless fancy is no meet way to serve the Almighty. Were I to be discovered here, even... I scarcely know what would follow. It would not sit well with His Majesty the King – that much is certain."

"Talk not of Kings; I sought to set you free from those confines." And here it is; here is what England knew he ought to have expected, and yet hoped he would not have to confront. Damned if he knows why he came here in the first place, if he was certain to melt under the faintest flare of meritocratic sanctimony. Outside, he imagines he can detect birdsong, and it is distant. In his mind, he thinks he can discern the beat of a drum; the rustling of paper; the rhythm of an orator's words, sculpted – twisted, distorted – by the man before him.

This ought not to feel like betrayal. But, if not betrayal, then confrontation – and England has done nothing but evade, thus far. It is a dangerous path; perilously close to an admission of fallibility, which in turn would be an affront to the monarchy itself. Ah, God deliver him from these cursed complications! Would that he existed on a lower rung of heaven's hierarchy...

"S'blood, what does God tell thee, John Milton?" he demands, sharply. "What is there left that the heavens deem permissible to learn?"

Milton winces at the curse, but soon softens; reproachfully, he gives a small gust of breath. "You always were an inveterate doubter, my nation," he breathes. "Sceptical even with regards to the most high!"

"I?" England scoffs, feeling the heat of his own vehemence flare. "Go to; I am obedient to a fault – and all the more put upon for it." He shall not stand to be lectured on _disorder, _of all things. But nor, he reminds himself, must he allow the passion of unfettered temper to obfuscate his reason. With effort, he drains the bitterness from his tone and endeavours to flush it with some measure of tolerance. "But what of thy marvellous dreams, John? What sayest the Almighty?"

"Rather he sings, my nation: gradually he reveals fragments of a most glorious whole. The Holy Spirit hath blessed me with the honour of becoming my Muse." England blinks. Several times. Gently, he quirks his head to the side – quizzical, yet unchallenging – and no sooner than this is performed, realises that the gesture of acquiescence is wholly lost on his sightless companion. Nonetheless, Milton seems to detect the movement, for he gives a faint murmur of a laugh, before resuming. "I am composing an epic, wherein God's illumination doth pierce my own darkness. The inspiration of the heavens aids me in my task – otherwise, a somewhat daunting venture."

"Thy task, John?"

"To justify the ways of God to men." Spoken so simply – sweetly, even. England could not call it bombast or pretension, though the words themselves most likely merit the description. Not when they are phrased with such bland innocence.

Yet he cannot restrain a quavering, broken chuckle at the prospect. "Justify a deity?" he repeats, amused. "How wouldst thou begin?"

"I begin with the arch-fiend Satan and his compatriots in hell," is the earnest reply.

This time, laughter emerges full-formed. "Tell me how that isn't blasphemy," demands England, through his mirth.

"Nay, not blasphemy at all. An untried innocence scarce deserves the name of goodness. I begin with evil only that I may establish good. My topic is the fall of man. I document the loss of paradise that it might be regained," he insists. "That out of disobedience, greater good may follow."

England puzzles this for a moment. "And the devil? A fascinating study, I'd wager?"

"By all counts," says Milton, eagerly. "And yet, when all is said and done – an ass."

England feels oddly disappointed. "Why?" he inquires, softly.

"To rage against the heavens," says Milton, with scholarly precision, "is courageous, yet ultimately futile. One cannot hope to challenge one's omnipotent creator. One can only exclude oneself from His love."

The two fall silent for a moment's breath. England pushes one final comment past the tranquillity: "Your words - they make me feel... oddly trapped." His companion's blank eyes lower in reproach, but he ventures no response. Instead, they just sit, basking in soundless shadow as the sun begins its weary descent, slipping out of the windows' reach. By contrast to the elements, John Milton seems to radiate strength and constancy. England feels humbled, abashed and feebly defiant all at once, warmed by the glare of words that, despite the season's chill, retain the lustre they once held back when the world was clawed in two and pieced together in the radiant, blood-glittering dawn.

* * *

><p><strong>1588<strong>

Once the initial shock of his nation's terse remark is overcome, Marlowe finds he can do nothing but laugh a little, and throw his head back as the laughter intensifies. England darts an irritated glance at him. Marlowe shakes his head in mute apology. Oh, there is little else to do but to laugh until he chokes – for his nation's reaction so epitomises the hypothetical audience that crowded his mind during the play's composition, and, moreover, their day and age at large, that he finds it nothing short of captivating. He wonders why he was ever so foolish as to be apprehensive; as expected, he has worked England into a perfect flurry of offended rationality and ruffled piety. He may even, he thinks, have prompted the slightest flutter of untrammelled thought to stir.

"I mean it," insists England. "Thy Faustus is a buffoonish little man with a buffoonish little agenda, running headlong into his self-inflicted, buffoonish little end." His cheeks are childishly flushed in the most obdurate, endearing fashion imaginable. He seems half poised to stamp his foot in pique. He is the very picture of a man taken roughly by the shoulders by a bold new concept and thoroughly shaken until half his senses are realigned.

"It irks thee, does it?" asks Marlowe, mischievously.

"Of course it does! What defect of reason could possibly account for –"

Marlowe cuts him off, abruptly. "It angers thee. Pricks at thee. Frustrates thee to no end of discontent." These staccato observations are punctuated by increasingly emphatic stabbing at the air with a stubby, ink-stained index finger. Marlowe's hands are perpetually stained – indeed, his neck and face occasionally take on a similar tint on particularly prolific days. He bears the blemishes proudly; they seem to him emblems of his occupation, and testament to a job well done. At present, the shadows cast themselves oddly about his countenance, causing his eyes to glare stark against the wavering gloom. They linger around his steady eyes and asymmetrical smirk like glutinous pitch, obscuring all but a sly glint of mockery.

"Ay. That it does," says England, warily. "Trade thy soul and everlasting bliss for ephemeral frivolity? Wherefore? What _likelihood?"_

Marlowe cannot help it; he veritably snickers. "Truly, my nation, thou art far too full of reason. I cannot converse with thee," he says, airily.

England snorts, disgruntled. "Better a reasonable dullard than a frivolous miscreant," he counters.

Marlowe frowns, softly, not so much in wounded pride as in gentle concentration. "Thou thinkst me nothing but a knavish jester, Art, but I warrant thee – much significance lies in sport." His voice emerges low, yet steady – and serious, for the first occasion of the evening.

"Oh? And what significance is there in clowning such as thou hast written here, pray? Nay, I'll grant thee there is great pity in the final act – and equal suspense at the outset, yet the interim is mean indeed, and weak by comparison, stuffed with pranks to make the groundlings titter - no more." England's criticism, though measured, with some structure, has nonetheless a thoroughly helpless edge to it. The relentless gush of protest has a hint of the hysterical.

Paradoxically, this desperate abuse serves only to kindle Marlowe's cheer once more. "Why, thou might as well say the same of the world at large! Certes, 'tis not a thing to be reduced to tragedy or comedy alone. A great man – a man of resounding hope, and ambitions exceeding the limits of both heaven and hell – must pay penitence for his greatness. Not in punishment. Rather, in laughter. It is the very loftiest of actions that excite men to mockery, and there is nothing low in its execution; for great heights must strike a balance with great depths." At this, Marlowe leans back heavily in his chair, inducing its frame to gently creak. With an air of finality, he exhales, slow and calm, as though inclined to expel these lilting ideas, allowing them to disperse amidst the still air like resplendent mist.

"S'blood, Kit, why does the fool not simply repent?" England bursts out, half enraged.

Ah! At last, they circle round to the key dispute. _For one so passionate in his condemnation of frivolity_, reflects Marlowe, _Art is remarkably keen to allow trifles of interpretation to waylay him at the expense of centralities_. "Because, thou learned, most rational and ridiculous creature – he does not wish to."

* * *

><p><strong>1796<strong>

England sprawls supine across the sofa, arms splayed out stiffly; face split by the most delighted of smiles. All calculated quite deliberately to irritate – and, indeed, succeeding remarkably. "Member of Parliament for the illustrious borough of Hindon, Lewis," he drawls, with relish. "The most rotten of its nature. How does the much-acclaimed, much-reviled, hitherto anonymous author of _The Monk _feel about this sudden dousing of respectability?" He snickers, low and rhythmically.

Matthew Lewis darts a glare at his nation. "If you would be so kind as to lift your feet off the cushions?" he hisses through his teeth.

"What you mean to say, of course, is _if you would be so kind as to leave me in peace. _What means this haunting of me, your face seems to oh-so-tacitly demand!" England chuckles, grandly. "Truth is, Lewis, I'm fascinated. Consider me a cat with a ball of string – unwieldy, impossible to untangle – and my poor, clumsy kitten-paws cannot fumble their way around its intricacies." With a half-hearted lurch, he swings himself upright to a vague approximation of a sitting position. Mockingly, he swipes at the air with his fingertips, in catlike imitation. "In short, I want to discuss your notorious book." A defiantly crooked eyebrow; an undisguised challenge.

Lewis grimaces reflexively, and mouths something resembling _for Christ's sake, Kirkland, _but stops short at voicing his aggravation. Pah. Humans. Stuffed to the brim with all manner of _deference, _the lot of them – a few excepted. Lewis is bold, but not wholeheartedly brash, and allows space for mischief, but would not allow himself the presumption of an outright challenge. A pity. He is a man born to shock. England finds he would rather like to be shocked.

He ploughs on, in some hope of a response. "Your efforts at a novel, _The Monk, _have scandalised the press, the public – and, above all, the young women of Britain," he remarks, and encounters no contradiction. "Yet you and I both know that at its heart lie the most conservative of values, and at its finish, the most conventional of conclusions. My question to you is this, Mr. Matthew Lewis: are you rebel or reactionary?"

Actually, he does not need to ask.

He is already aware - the answer is that there is none.

Lewis did not so much light a spark as he wilfully kindled a colossal inferno; did not blaspheme so much as usher the devil himself through his doors. And then, he faltered, stumbled – turned and caught the first full stare of what he summoned, and recoiled in horror – for the flames exploded over every inch of the earth, and a host of demonic guests cackled in the wake of the destruction it wrought.

And so he concluded, damp towel trailing limply from one hand; rosary wrapped tentatively round the other; absurd attempts at mitigation trailing into a feeble finish.

Ultimately, he feared what he unleashed. He burst open convent doors; dropped filth and licentiousness with a careless hand, like manna from heaven, into the most sacred of institutions – and then penned its disintegration and fall. He allowed his women to stand, unchaste and unburdened – then, ultimately, demonised them, or packaged them back up into a conventional marriage. First they cradle corpses; then, they are ushered into sanctuary. Innocence is mocked in good sport, and then slaughtered through its own misjudgement – and subsequently mourned. And the writhing mob is let loose, careening through the gates in all manner of base ferocity; an apocalyptic flourish, later banished in a very apogee of fear. That tacit, turbulent panic which burst in the hearts of all Englishmen when the French worker burst his shackles overseas: a mirror was held to it, and the viewer shuddered in response to a phenomenon he scarcely ventured to acknowledge before.

To paste all those doors shut, with their erstwhile occupants still running rampage at crazed liberty... well, it is scarcely convincing.

Like all these morbid, supernatural writers – and other rebels of his ilk - Lewis flirted with destruction, tearing away until he found true freedom. Then, terrified, he bid his new lady liberty hide her head in shame; he turned tail and fled.

England stretches, long and languid, darting a warm, mischievous smile at his affronted looking host.

"You demand too much of me," says Lewis, eventually.

"Ah! _Demand me nothing – what you know, you know, _he says," laughs England. Lewis recoils, hurt at the allusion. "Smooth your brow again, Lewis; you know I meant nothing by it. But an author's intentions are a mystery, and rightly so. Even one's Nation has no right to pry. My apologies, on that count. Art is as art does, and what it does is thoroughly inexplicable." He smiles – lively, bright – and Lewis cannot help but give one dry chuckle in response.

That man, as an adolescent, had more humour. Indeed, the book itself was shrine to such delightful immaturity – and now, England supposes, memorial.

"But if I were to guess," adds England, softer now, "I would hazard that you are neither rebel, nor reactionary – but rather an odd amalgamation of the two. Furthermore, I would wager that you are apt to feel... lost, amidst a moral sea."

"All morality is a storm," agrees Lewis, enthusiastically. "And all conviction a shipwreck." The liveliness fades a second later; his expression wilts a little. "But I beseech you not to patronise me."

_I have centuries on you, _thinks England, with dignity. _I can patronise whomever I damn well wish to. _But he nonetheless keeps the admonishment to himself. _Youth is perhaps, in times like these, our only compass, shoddy though it is. _

"I would never," is his only answer. "You puzzle me more than I can say. Yet I cannot help but imagine that you and your set will be the ones to inherit the ponderous task of steering the wreck." He pauses for a moment's thought. "Hmm. Tread wisely."

* * *

><p><strong>1588<strong>

"I do not understand thee."

"Thou wast ever blunt and uncomprehending in the face of what thou understoodst not, my nation."

England wrinkles his nose in impeccably constructed disdain – so impeccably constructed, in fact, that it almost obscures the ire at his own bemusement. "Why shun repentance?" he demands. "Faustus whines for mercy near thrice per scene."

Marlowe nods, patiently. "Aye, that he does. But what of it?"

"What of it? Why, if he beseeches God for mercy, it necessarily follows that he repents!" England's face is a mass of perplexity, eyebrows and explosive discontent.

Marlowe reflects that he really should stop laughing, sometime. If only his nation would not persist in being so delightfully amusing. "My good fellow, truly it doth not. In the end, Faustus is tortured and weak and wishes to spare himself the punishment he hath incurred. Yet he remains, in mind and soul, resolute. A final, devilish blessing; call it as thou wilt. For God – a fatal monster indeed! – is omnipotent, and thus man's only weapon is his mind. We sin not in deeds half so much as in thoughts, and God knows and fears it. That his soul revolts at repentance even whilst his mouth utters it is testament to his last defiance. And from this, springs all; the light-winged fancy of impossible rebellion, and its steel-forged end in divine outrage. Is't possible that it should ever succeed? Nay, never. Yet this does not rob the action of its virtue. To struggle for what thou never shalt possess – unjust, closed universe in which we live – is the essence of humanity."

He sits back, not without relish. _Go to; I have done. _England will never understand, for it is blasphemy, and blasphemy must remain above all unintelligible, save as an ominous, ink-black blur on the edge of the moral horizon visible purely for the purposes of avoidance. Pure indeed. The heavens forefend but that our entertainment may remain unstained by such practices. Too late, for our theatre is a den of blackest sin.

England appears to be struggling, and speaks with a certain weight, as though pushing individual words through the thick mesh of a cage. "So... it's about – rebellion," he ventures, ponderously.

Once more, the corners of Marlowe's mouth quirk upwards into an indulgent smile. "Decide for thyself."

Evidently, those words were ill-chosen, for England's face is illuminated by a light triumphant enough to pierce the surrounding gloom. "Ha! Yes, that's thy moral. Decide for thyself and abjure the words of others. Abjure the scriptures! Strive for thyself alone. That's thy Faustus: a man who would be demi-god – yet he lacks imagination; he thinks only of his own advancement."

Marlowe wonders if it would be inappropriate to note that his nation's words are accompanied by an almost devilish glee.

Instead, he allows his head to sink forwards and find rest in his cupped hands. Instinctively, he begins to rub at his aching eyes – an action which, naturally, educes only further discomfort. "Christ, Art; we're going backwards," he groans through the mesh of his fingertips.

Weariness seems to trigger a lapse in England's burst of righteous indignation, for there is silence of a rather fraught variety. Marlowe deems it safe to peer above his hands.

England surveys him with an odd expression: a squinting amalgamation of curiosity and revulsion. It is virtually the mirror of the look Marlowe has a few times observed him give whilst tracing the embroidery of some tapestry in a church - or once, whilst at prayer. It teeters just on brink of both obeisance and distrust. For all of an instant, their eyes brush focus and the expression is sustained through contact. Seconds later, it disperses, and nothing remains of the moment save a sweep of shivers at the base of Marlowe's spine.

"Light a candle, would you?" mutters Marlowe, strangely abashed.

* * *

><p><strong>1823<strong>

"I am deeply sorry for your loss, Mrs. Shelley."

"He, I imagine, would not have cried for loss of you."

England traces the edge of his saucer with a careful fingertip, eyes settled on the table. "Mm. In his utopia, there was little space for the clash of nations, I'll concede. And yet, I wept most bitter tears for him."

In this shabby little room on the Strand, crowded by teetering stacks of papers, stifled by heat for want of a window, and chastened by this woman who deems him a hypocrite, England feels disturbingly out of his depth. The quick, searing look that Mary Shelley darts him – miraculously sharpened, not dulled, by pain – seems to strip away several layers of skin. She blames him for their persecution; partially hates him for her husband's death – and ever abhors his institutions. He, for his part, has thrown careless judgement her way before: criticised her for living in sin; hounded Percy for his atheism; driven them from his borders.

He wishes there were some way to convince her it was done, not by choice, but by necessity.

That he too often feels the scrape of chains; the clash of shackles.

That he is confused – oh so confused – and would greatly appreciate guidance: her guidance; any guidance, provided it eases things somewhat. Provided it loosens the bonds that lodge deep in his chest.

As it is, he wishes he could say that Percy was a flare of hope, now brutally extinguished – and part of him feels the ache of his absence keenly.

_It's hard, _he silently tells her. _Balancing is hard. Compromise and enlightenment are hard. It's all so abominably difficult. _

"I only wish," she tells him – audibly - in return, "that I knew there was something left of him that you would admit to having – appreciated. Something beyond the verse itself." The words themselves are smooth, polished and calm, but there is an undertone of anxiety to the request.

England leans forward at this, eager to answer at once. "_Mary," _he breathes, and it is like the rasp of the waves against a pebbled shore. Mary, my light, who carries the legacy of husband and mother, and whose own creation will resound in turn, on a seismic scale, to cause the literary world to shudder once more, with satisfaction and dread. "He gave me Prometheus...!"

She quirks a quizzical eyebrow in his direction. "The closet drama?"

"The _character, _Mrs. Shelley. Which is not to say that the drama itself was not uplifting in all the most inexplicable of ways, but – I owe him for that one, overriding concept above all..."

She tilts her head a fraction to the side, and slowly blinks: tacit permission for him to elaborate.

With mounting enthusiasm, England proceeds to do so – if only to make things a little _clearer _in his own mind. "For such a long while, I thought rebellion was – and had to be - individual. Self-centred. I was surrounded by the Faustian figures of old, who wished to defy their betters simply for the prospect of gold, fame and appetite, and you have no idea how much it hounded me with its very hollowness. By raging against the heavens, I thought one must place oneself squarely within the category of the villain – and, what's more, relish in the role, abandoning all that God is not. But _Prometheus... _Shelley tossed a drowning man a rope with that poem. Here was a seditionist who failed to succumb to selfishness; who welcomed freedom not for himself, but for humanity; who ushered in a new age, not simply new comforts... Not a leader, but a saviour. A secular saviour. I had thought the only viable space for rebellion lay with the devil, but now I know that its potential is latent in all of _humanity." _Halfway through this little diatribe, he found himself pressing his palms against the table, continuing to speak unseated; now, he realises exactly how agitated he has allowed himself to become, and promptly sinks back into his chair, somewhat cowed. More than a little ashamed.

Damn these bohemians; these lakeside poets; these social reformers and political dissidents who somehow, despite all logic, manage to stir him – manage to trigger in him a storm of conflicting emotions and wild, whirling words.

Mary Shelley takes a sharp breath inwards, and, once England has recovered from his embarrassment sufficiently to be able to meet her eyes once more, he observes that they are blurred with a soft screen of tears.

Swiftly, with all the ungainly awkwardness befitting any gentleman confronted by such a scene, he proffers his handkerchief which - after a moment's consideration, during which she appears to briefly scorn the prospect of accepting anything from such a man, monster – practicality having won over, she accepts with a certain amount of grace.

"I'm sorry," she says, and it is voiced as a rebuke. "But if he could have once heard you say _half _of that..."

He engages in a brief tussle with his better judgement in order to keep his face level, neutral. "I shan't say one word of it again, I'd wager," he mutters, abashedly.

"No," she says, hazily, tears forgotten for the present. "No, I don't suppose you shall."

The harsh, abrasive words propelled into the air by force of England's raw little speech have by now settled, and coalesced once more into a further, hollow impasse.

"Still," he says, briskly lifting his teacup from its chipped saucer in order to take a measured sip. "There's always the verse."

"Yes," she says, in an unreadable tone. "There's the verse."

* * *

><p><strong>1588<strong>

England does as requested and lights the half-burned candle, sending shattered flakes of illumination across the room which twine and intersperse with the multiple shadows cast. They dance in wraithlike frenzy as the movement is performed. This done, he finally takes a seat at the edge of the mattress – tentatively, as though wary of producing the slightest impact upon the room – frightened, perhaps, of undue association with its inhabitant and his merciless _ideas_. The thought amuses Marlowe a little more than perhaps it ought.

"Thou art an arch blasphemer," England observes, eventually. The words wilt a little in the open air.

"In the end, my hero's actions are of no import," says Marlowe, answering an entirely different, earlier complaint, "all those frivolities pale in comparison to that foremost, glorious defiance. All else stems from the contract."

"Gloat not; thou hast made thy point," mutters England, running an abstracted hand through his hair as though plagued by headache.

"Yet still thou dost not comprehend!" Marlowe hisses.

Too often they have clashed wits for the one to appreciate the other's discourse. Too firmly aligned in his prejudices is his church-addled nation to relent and commiserate with the Faustian dilemma. If one could only kindle but a glimmer of understanding...!

"God," decides Marlowe, "would have us abstain from everything of the world worth savouring. The way to heaven is paved by deeds uncommitted; by pleasures untasted. Such asceticism becomes not man. We are made to desire; built for aspirations, and, indeed, to harbour pride. Instinctually, we demand only that which we may not immediately grasp, that which is forbidden to be experienced. Divine sanction is opposed as a matter of course to the humanity's fettered yearnings. It is God's cruel jest that we are barred from that which allures us."

His words give way to an expansive silence, the surface of which is shattered only externally, by muffled footsteps below stairs and muted shouts from the street outside. Their eyes meet once more, in a forceful clash of determination and guilt.

England bites his lip. "Abstain, and thou shalt save thy soul."

Marlowe smiles. "Rebel, and thou shalt feel the warmth of bliss before the heat of hellfire."

* * *

><p><strong>26<strong>**th**** March, 2011**

Hard to say what prompted this fancy – but then, England has occasionally, over the centuries, managed to surprise even himself. All he knows for definite is that this cannot be dismissed out of hand as some ephemeral burst of national petulance; he has, after all, experienced that too, and prides himself on knowing the difference. And, above all, he prides himself on possessing limits – political and personal, and both when the two ineluctably intertwine – and, moreover, on his low tolerance of those limits being breached.

He, like all nations, has means by which to prevent such an onslaught, up to and including rampant social disorder.

This is nothing of the sort. This is shallow, light hearted frivolity compared to conflicts he has weathered in the past.

Yet somehow this does not prevent the urge to take it seriously.

Now, edging up the familiar embankment of the Thames, pushed onwards by a chanting, thousand-fold throng of other protesters – and aware, gloriously aware all the time that other limbs of London's streets are awash with many thousands more – he reflects that, somewhere along the convoluted historical line, the devil managed to clue him into at least a handful of details. For one, he has never quite forgotten how to resist. And whilst he has also failed to unlearn how to be shocked and ashamed at his own behaviour - for the moment, he finds he hardly cares.

Today is all transient sunlight, and patches of gray, and fleeting bursts of wind – and a dozen anonymous faces clustered around his own; a thousand voices lifted in thunderous, blurred unison, overlapping haphazardly with the different, off-beat chants of the neighbouring thousand. And they scream with childish delight every time they march under a bridge, revelling in the predictable reverberations of _no ifs! no buts! No public sector cuts! _and the atonal thrum of wordless whoops.

England would be lying through his teeth if he claimed it did not make his heart pound also, in steady, exhilarating unison.

Flanking the edges of the crowd are innumerable makeshift stalls, uniformly emblazoned with loud, red posters demanding **GENERAL STRIKE**, and a library's worth of newspapers published by various socialist factions determined to resort to anything short of cooperation to publicise their cause. With precision born of practice, they dole out leaflets and swift phrases of encouragement to those who pass. As he drifts inadvertently to the edge, a paper seller from Socialist Unity seems to recognise his features. With engaging lack of ceremony, she greets him, cheerfully proffering a hand of welcome, and a pin declaring **Capitalism Isn't Working. **With pierced lip, purple hair and badge-encrusted T-shirt, she reminds him of a type he once imagined to be a dying breed since the dawn of New Labour and Sky TV.

"Seen the light at last?" she grins, with warmth. "Ready to turn this country around for the better, Arthur Kirkland?"

"Don't push your luck," he rejoins. "I'm here to watch." But he buys a paper regardless, and glances back, once, with a flicker of a smile.

The Communist Party of Great Britain has a marching band. He gives them points for effort.

And oh, he knows that this tremendous burst of defiance will peter out with all due bathos in coming months, like all ephemeral snatches of fury in the past. He is aware that he is no nation to sustain fire with any degree of permanence, and that his resolve for lasting conflict faltered somewhere before the turn of the seventeenth century. He has been told he lacks the will to splinter again – and that, internally, his institutions are solid. But he does not know if he believes it. For now he basks in the novelty of being unable to move an inch for protesters, and even raises his voice to merge with the tangle of catcalls and screams that weave their way through the crowd as the demonstration reaches Downing Street.

As they wind their ponderous way towards Hyde Park, England is not entirely unconvinced that something integral has shifted – that some small, inner gear within the national mechanism has slipped its fastenings, propelling the instrument in a completely unanticipated direction altogether.

Though his feet are faintly blistered, and his voice scraped hoarse from hurling pithy, rhyming chants at the absent ears of apathetic foes, he is alive to the prospect of such a voyage. And perhaps feels a minor aesthetic thrill at the unbridled pageantry of this show.

Whatever its import – facile or momentous – he has never felt less inclined to back down and obey. A little perversity in the face of one's scarcely elected government is, he opines, a truly healthy pursuit.

With a long, fond glance at his fellow marchers, he melts back into the centre of the throng.

* * *

><p><strong>1588<strong>

"Rail as thou wilt, Art - this play will meet with success."

Low, rippling laughter.

"That, Kit, I never had cause to doubt."

* * *

><p><strong>Fin.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Extra Notes:<strong>

**- There is some disparity with the terms of address in the 16****th**** and 17****th**** century scenes. 'You' is the more formal term, whereas 'thee' is used either to denote a close relationship, or to address one's subordinate. England, arrogant thing that he is, addresses pretty much everyone as 'thee'. Marlowe, being Marlowe, returns the favour and thees England right back; Milton uses the more respectful 'you'. **

**- If you ever get the chance, read Matthew Lewis' 'The Monk'. It is delightfully ridiculous. **

**- On the 26****th**** of March 2011, there was a national demonstration against the government public sector cuts. It was pretty incredible. I'm pretty sure I've failed to do it justice, but it doesn't help that England-pov is so inherently sceptical. **


End file.
